This article is a review of UNBROKEN.

All that talent squandered for a masochistic TV-movie-of-the-week. Angelina Jolie wears the director's cap for a second outing. Following up 2011's IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY, a hard to watch cataloguing of atrocities during the Yugoslavian conflict of the 1990s, the focus has shifted from man's capacity to brutalise women, to man's mistreatment of man. Nothing new is being said here, bar the ability to endure. What a waste of cinematographer Roger Deakins, composer Alexandre Desplat, and co-writers the Coen brothers (they clearly save the best stuff for themselves, see also GAMBIT (2012)).

There really should have been five parts to UNBROKEN. We got three.

The first part involves the focus, Louis Zamperini as a youngster causing mischief. A son of Italian immigrant parents, the new life in America has Louis butting heads with those in authority, from the police to his father. Not backing down from bullies – older, bigger, out numbering – sets the tone. On the verge of going off the rails, older brother Pete encourages him to join the school track team; giving advice, “If you can take it, you can make it” – which becomes the mantra of UNBROKEN.

Cue training and running scenes and unwanted FORREST GUMP comparisons. Athletics in cinema takes skill to energise; for every CHARIOTS OF FIRE, there is a FAST GIRLS. Camerawork and editing do not quicken the pulse. Zamperini (O’Connell), as a teenager, turns out up to be prodigal, and is able to represent the United States in the 5000m at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hackneyed shots of the community huddling around radios in support are gifted the audience. Unasked for SEABISCUIT flashbacks crop up.Part two of UNBROKEN actually opens the movie. Louis is a bombardier in the US Air Force in the Pacific theatre of combat. A striking shot of the horizon as bombers pierce it, and a barrage of ear-splitting ground to air defence, are the few standouts in the film. There’s a moment where a young gunner talks about going for a drink post-op; guess what, he does not make it. Cliché klaxon!

On a rescue mission, Zamperini and crew crash into the ocean and must remain alive for a surprising number of days. LIFE OF PI and ALL IS LOST this ain’t, in terms of conveying such hardship; though there are brief moments to elevate, such as a disturbing sequence when a shark is killed by a strafing fighter plane.

When you think the survivors, Louis and Russell Allen Phillips (Domhnall Gleeson), have been through enough for one movie, their suffering has only just begun, as they are captured by the Japanese navy and interred separately. At a detention camp for allied prisoners of war, Zamperini comes to the attention of brutal, sadistic commandant, Mutsushiro Watanabe (Takamasa Ishihara); now UNBROKEN echoes THE RAILWAY MAN. Its runtime is dominated by a gruelling regime of torture.

Not cleanly delineated, these three parts overlap and intermingle, though sans the sophistication of 21 GRAMS. Post credits highlight where a part four and five would have been welcome. Zamperini suffered, we are told but not shown, years of post-traumatic stress – how he overcame such abuse would have been a rare presentation. Louis went on to champion forgiveness between the two nations, again it is written and not illustrated – surely a perennially valuable lesson to explore. “Love thy enemy,” a pastor preaches early on in UNBROKEN, a sermon prefiguring a film that does not arrive.

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